Rabbit In the Garden
by ubiquitousantiquitous
Summary: She could recall the speed the petals bloomed and spread apart, the way they tilted in the early morning sunlight. The way Pam had spoken so lovingly, so gently to them, the way Harley had first realized she wouldn't mind kissing her…


Anonymous: Based on two of your previous pieces: Harley tries to cheer up Pammy while she's dealing with her Seasonal Affective Disorder.

**Ah hahaaha. I want you to know that I think you all are literally striving to make me die of sadness.**

_**Slight**_**trigger warning for depressive behavior.**

**Also, if you've watched Batman: The Animated Series, you'll spy some nods to the episode "House and Garden."**

The roses were wilting. The damn roses were _wilting_. How could she have let that detail slip past her? _It's almost winter_, she recollected again bitterly, _things die off in the cold_.

It was a stupid mistake. If only the Big Bad Batsy hadn't nailed her in the head with his left foot just hours before. If he hadn't, Harley wouldn't have missed the crucial detail after shuffling her way back home, taking dark back alleys, just to get to the hideout she and her Sirens shared. She deserved it, though. Trying a heist by herself.

Her mallet was cracked nearly in half at the handle, and she doubted Pam would allow her another, not when the one in hand was crafted in her gardens. She'd said the wood was comprised of willing sacrifice; the trees respected her. Whatever that meant. All Harley knew was it got her a new, solid oak weapon that always seemed to aim true, whistling merrily through the air to meet its mark. Close though they were, Harley knew the plants came first to Red, and she respected that. Still irked, though.

Outside the once abandoned building she and the others called home, Harley paused at their trash, giving the trusty mallet a proper send-off with a kiss and salute. Once the gates closed behind her, she glanced back once, and turned away, pulling off her cap.

"I'm home!" She called into the foyer.

Bud and Lou, usually salivating at the sight of her, merely looked up from where they slept on the sofa before going back to sleep.

"My little angels," Harley sighed. She wanted this costume off; she was sweaty and cold and the fabric was beginning to chafe. "Where're ya other moms, babies?"

If they knew their locations, they didn't say. Selina, she presumed, was either asleep and dead to the world (the only way the infamous Catwoman slept, honestly), or out on her own heist, too. If that were the case, perhaps Harley's flub was just bad timing; if Batman and Catwoman had crossed paths, and they always did, he definitely wouldn't have been on that rooftop to kick her silly.

"Red?" Harley called up the stairs, hearing no response. Of course, the building was large, so it was possible she just had to do a bit of legwork to find her girl. "Red, I know it's late, but I could _really _use some TLC right about now; at least a kiss goodnight!"

The light was on in the big bathroom, the golden glow seeped out across the hall against the smothering dark. No sound, however, came from inside. Harley debated knocking—after all, bathing wasn't the _only _thing that happened in a bathroom—but gave in. At the very least, she'd be able to tell Ivy she'd made it back mostly all right.

"Red, I'm home."

Silence.

"Pam?"

Pam never locked the bathroom door; there was no need. Harley entered, her breath faltering. The air was cool; when Pam bathed, she preferred the water so hot the steam could almost scald you. But the air was cool.

The bath was dangerously full. The water bobbed and lapped at the edges of the tub, threatening to slosh out, but remained precariously secured.

An image of the roses in the foyer sprung up in her mind, wilting despite being potted. Pam kept plants alive so effortlessly that occasionally they sprung up from the earth when she passed by, even when they were a long way from sprouting.

Harley remembered the first time Pam had waved her hand over a cluster of peonies, still buds, in her garden. She could still shape the thought perfectly, as if it were yesterday and not back in those early days not long after they met. She could recall the speed the petals bloomed and spread apart, the way they tilted in the early morning sunlight. The way Pam had spoken so lovingly, so gently to them, the way Harley had first realized she wouldn't mind kissing her…

The feeling in her stomach was stealing the warmth from the memory.

"Oh _shit_," Harley breathed.

Her knees would be bruised tomorrow from how hard she flung herself to the floor, but she didn't care. Not bothering to remove her gloves or roll up her sleeves, her shaking arms pulled Pam's nude form up from the frigid bathwater. The instant her face broke through the surface, brilliant green eyes snapped open and water burbled out from between pale lips. Too relieved to form questions, Harley pulled Pam into a tight embrace that forced more water from the shivering woman's mouth.

"You idiot!" Harley didn't think there was ever a time she'd used those words at Ivy. She wanted to ask why she did it; she wanted to yell at her for making what would be the worst and last decision of her life. But she couldn't. She could only think of golden sunlight, peonies blooming beneath careful hands, the hands now shaking and soaked on her shoulders. If she'd been there just moments sooner, or later… "I'm sorry!"

"P…" Ivy's teeth chattered so hard she bit her tongue. Grunting, she tugged Harley tighter to her, her body practically convulsing from the cold. "Plug. P-pull the—"

Harley yanked out the chain. The water began to swirl away with a gurgle of the pipes. Not like it actually mattered to the floor; it was already soaked. What mattered was Pam.

"You're an absolute _loon_," Harley breathed, still dazed. "Can't believe what ya almost did, Red. Don'tcha understand how much…how you…ya _life _is so…"

"H-Harley," under these circumstances, Harley almost wanted the stutter to be a laugh. Comedy was a good way of getting her brain back on track. "I wasn't…t-trying to…was thirsty…"

Puzzled, Harley pulled away. Now her costume was soaked from not only her long night with the Bat, but an ordeal that nearly killed her, too. She was sure of it. In that moment, her heart nearly stopped. If it had, that'd be the end right? No more Pam. No more Harley. Funny, how math like that only showed up at the worst of times.

She debated pulling Pam out and drying her off, but that would take too long to warm her up, and she had no idea how long the redhead had been under. Biting her lip against the blow of the decision, should it be the wrong one, Harley started up the water again. A major in psychology, a minor in medicine; that was the ticket to a well-rounded mental health professional. She'd also been a lifeguard one summer in high school. Harley knew a thing or two about the human body.

Pam's eyes lidded and she shuddered with delight, pulling away from Harley and falling back against the tub as the hot water overtook her. Harley made sure to keep it from getting too high.

After a long moment of deep breathing and simply staring into each other, though what the other feared, neither woman would know, Pam broke the silence first.

"I wasn't drowning myself," Pam's words were slow and of a deep tone. "I was only under a moment before you barged in."

"A moment's a long fucking time, Red!" Harley was starting to lose her temper again. "Why?"

"I told you," Pam broke eye contact, staring down at the water instead. "I was thirsty."

"Most people get a huge glass of ice water and call it a night, lady. They don't fill up a tub and dunk themselves in like they're the cup, straw, and mouth."

Pam's lips firmed together, gaining color back in them, just like other spots of her body. Her hand, for instance, had found its way around Harley's gloved one, and her pink thumb stroked her fingers absently. Thinking, as always. Everyone thought, but Red seemed to do it all the time. Most patients at Arkham were out of their mind; Ivy was always in hers.

"I suppose 'thirsty' was not the correct word," Pam admitted quietly. "It happens this time every year, when the sun sets sooner and my plants are harder to communicate with. I feel like I'm part of the Great Withering, too. When my children are suffering, I give them water. If I'm suffering, shouldn't the same work for me?"

Harley exhaled nasally. "S.A.D."

"Beg pardon?" Pam sounded offended.

"Nuh-no," Harley shook her head. "S.A.D. Seasonal Affective Disorder. I shoulda guessed it. Before you, me, and the cat lived together, you'd go missing this time of the year for a while. Well, until I'd find where ya'd be hiding around Christmas and Chanukah times, cupcake. I was real good at finding ya, remember?"

Pam's hand tightened in hers. "Still are."

Frowning, Harley stood with a groaning stretch, feeling her back pop in various places. The sound filled her head like a fireworks show. She had just turned to seek out a towel for Ivy when she felt a tug on the back of her spandex getup.

"…Sorry," Pam muttered, releasing Harley's costume with a snap. "I didn't mean to…"

"S'okay, Red," Harley muttered, confusion plain on her face. She turned again, and this time she felt Red's hand do the grabbing on the material. "You a'right?"

"Are…" Pam cleared her throat; she was self-conscious about something, and it wasn't the fact she was naked. "Are you, um, leaving?"

Tilting her head, Harley turned to face her again. It was weird, looking down on Red for once; she was so short she was always looking up at her.

"I was just gonna getcha towel," Harley assured her, an inkling forming in her mind. "I'm not leavin' ya."

"Good," Pam sighed, obviously going for nonchalant. "Could you turn on the CD player? I had it going earlier, but it ended and…I didn't want to get out."

Harley chuckled and pressed the play button of the stereo Selina kept on the back of the toilet for when she took a long bath. Granted, Harley was entirely certain she'd never bathed as long as Pam had now. Sad, brassy jazz filled the rapidly warming room. With the towel in hand, Harley knelt beside Pam, stroking her hair reassuringly. She frowned when the redhead's eyes started to slip closed.

"There's still soil in ya hair," Harley stated slowly. "_Don't _tell me you've just been sitting in the tub and haven't done anything but sit."

"All right, I won't."

It was hard to get sassy back at Red when she was like this. She'd seen Pam cry before, but she'd never seen her so miserable, with her face all scrunched up and clutching her arms tight to herself, as if not comprehending that what she was feeling wasn't a truly physical ache. She knelt behind Red outside the tub, and pressed her forehead to hers.

"Want me to wash your hair real gentle?"

It was a strangely intimate scenario, washing someone else's hair. When Harley thought about it, how often did the average person stick their hands on someone's head like that? And what a trust exercise! She couldn't entirely convince herself that she'd be okay with someone's hands scrubbing at her scalp. She could feel Pam's apprehension, too, but that made Harley redouble her efforts to make her touch as gentle as possible. She smirked when she saw the skin of Pam's shoulder pebble into gooseflesh.

"Okay," Harley helped Pam step out of the tub and into a towel. "Now that you're all clean and away from deep, standing liquid, I'm gonna shower. I'll be out in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes?" Pam echoed, a lost expression on her face.

"Ten minutes," Harley nodded, and nudged her outside.

The instant the door was closed she pressed her back to it and felt her heart beat rapidly. What an _atmosphere _that had been; the intensity of the past twenty minutes sank into her like a cold sweat. Her train of thoughts veered off the track as she bathed, trying to visualize certain pages of past textbooks. Treating Ivy's disorder was possible, but not in any way the stubborn woman would ever accept. Ivy didn't take any medication she couldn't formulate herself, and she wouldn't even use sunlamps on her plants, so neither of those treatments would work.

The only option left was wait it out. Unlike depression, S.A.D. was trickier to deal with because it dealt almost entirely with chemical imbalances that technically had little to do with mood. The sadness of S.A.D. was like a side-effect, and it looked like Harley was going to have to help Pam ride it out.

She opened the door, started when it opened only a tad before hitting Red's knee. The older woman sat cross-legged on the floor outside the bathroom, still in a towel, her hair sopping wet.

"It was twenty," she said from the floor, looking back at Harley. "You said you'd be ten."

"So sue me," Harley sighed. Stooping down, she snatched up Pam. Short, though she was, she was still stronger than the plant queen. "I was thinking, when was the last time we stayed up all night? Y'know, just the two of us, talkin' like we're a coupla kids? We could watch movies, play music, dance a little—y'know, the old fun stuff we did when we first met. Whaddaya say?"

"I don't want to watch a movie," Pam, her bottom lip stiff, thumped her head against Harley's shoulder. That was just Pam's way sometimes, giving affection but going out of her way to make it seem like it wasn't.

Harley was already most of the way to the bedroom. "Well, there's lotsa other things to do! When the Cat gets home—"

"I sent her away," Pam groused as Harley set her on the edge of the bed. "She kept asking how I was. Every fifteen minutes. Like clockwork. As if I'm some upset child. So she called up Bruce Wayne and met him at her apartment. It's so odd, how opposite her tastes are. Bruce Wayne could treat her to a fine dining experience every night; Batman probably couldn't microwave a burrito that was already once cooked."

Harley tried to hold in a gut-busting laugh at how _pissed _Pam was. She went into the closet to find something other than a robe to wear, feeling all the while like she was sharing the space with a wet cat. Pam took the towel from her waist and began absently drying her hair, a vacant expression on her face. Harley frowned, and tossed her a faded T-shirt she hadn't seen since that first time she and the redhead crashed in her old toxic pad.

"Get at least a little dressed, Red. If we're gonna relive old times, you gotta be prepared."

Pam moved the fabric of the shirt in her hands. "We had a lot of fun back then, didn't we?"

Harley grinned eagerly, pulling a tank top down over her head. She launched herself onto the bed beside Pam. "_So much! _I dunno if I ever got to tell ya that. I know it's been a coupla years, but it still feels like yesterday. Every night, you and me, out on the town! Kicking ass and not even bothering ta take names, 'cause not a one of 'em was worthy. Car chases, the _Bats _not even able to put a finger on us, and all those stolen jewels…"

"And then you went back to him," Pam muttered from within the shirt she was shrugging on. Once clothed, she regarded Harley wearily, eyes slightly unfocused, but the expression that of bald honesty. She stroked Harley's cheek with the backs of her fingers. "I remember screaming into my gardens every night for a month after we escaped Arkham, and you went with him, instead of with me. So many benign plants turned carnivorous when you left, Harl. I had to burn them down to control them."

Harley swallowed hard. "That was…all back then, Red."

"You'd still leave," there was no anger in Pam's voice, and that hurt all the worse. Her face was deadpan and drawn, finality set upon her face like a porcelain mask. "If he showed up right this instant, told you to get in the car, you would go with him."

"No, I wouldn't." Harley was full of cold shock. "I've stuck it out with you and Cat for long enough for you to _know _that ain't true."

"So you say. You've always been the rabbit in my gardens, Harley."

"The…" Harley found herself growing frightened of Pam's cold, neutral tone. "Rabbit?"

"I had a lovely fence built, white picket, but you dug your way inside. Then you began to eat. You devoured everything; you left nothing for me and at the end of it, you were just so damn _small _and so damn _pitiable _that I just let you in again and again. I always considered bringing you into my home, to wash you and bandage you and dig my fingers in your dense fur, but rabbits are creatures of the wild. They shun that which heals them. And then the winter comes, and you disappear, and I think to myself 'oh, that poor little thing, alone out there in the wood,' and come spring, you return, starved and ready for the feast. It repeats for years until one day you stop coming, and it's through a cold season, or the hands of some tracker with a gun."

Harley knew exactly who Pam was implying was the harsh winter which would have the gun in hand. "So ya think I'm just a pest, that it? A stupid little rabbit girl who ain't got nothin' in her head but stealing all the good from you? You think so _little of me?_"

Pam's smile was broken in the way a china doll's face might gain a crack with too much playtime. "I think so _much _of you."

Heat soared through Harley like the shock of a hot slap. "I ain't stupid, Ivy! Don'tcha think I _know _how fucked up I am? That's what makes this so hard for me _all the damn time! _I can feel that I'm screwy! Hell, I could even pull out a textbook and point out the exact definitions of what's wrong with me, but I _can't stop it!_"

Pam said nothing. She merely sat, smiling sadly at Harley, as if she was ready for her to disappear at any moment, and then Harley had her answer. With a frustrated grunt, she leaned forward and quickly gave Red a rough kiss.

"I see what you're doin', and it ain't workin'. You ain't Mistah J, and I _know _this bad streak will go away. Actually go away, not like Joker's, and then you'll be Red again." Her lips were still against Ivy's as she spoke. Suddenly, she took Ivy's bottom lip between her teeth and briefly chomped hard. "But I'm still real pissed ya called me a stupid bunny girl!"

Harley stamped off, unsurprised but disappointed Pam wasn't following.

She flopped down backward on her oversize beanbag chair in the foyer. A rabbit! After all they'd been through in this cold, damn world of theirs, and Red had the _nerve _to compare her to a rabbit. Though she wanted to chalk it up to Pam merely wanting to push Harley away, make her disappear, she knew that the words were true.

She had been a pesky little vermin to Ivy. She recalled those days, stealing away from Joker, sneaking into the redhead's bedroom at night, and gobbling up any happiness she could get from softer hands. She had been so selfish back then; she'd never once considered Red's feelings. All she could think of was fattening up on the kindness that came from those gentle fingertips, the ones that stroked flowers and petals like the only lovers they would ever make contact with.

How many times had Joker kicked her legs out from beneath her, thrown her through doorways, threatened to hurt her in worse ways than on the surface?

How many times had Pam been the one she made those teary-eyed confessions to, eager to receive soothing kisses and whispered affirmations?

And when Pamela's sweetness turned to tough love, firm admonishments and pleas to leave the clown, how many times had Harley simply left, temporarily satisfied with a stomach full of a loving garden?

"Sugar?"

Harley stirred as if she had fallen asleep. Perhaps she had. If it was the case, then she had cried in her sleep. Looking up at Pam, standing across the room in the archway, she realized that if she thought the older woman couldn't get more miserable, then she had been kidding herself.

Tears rained down splotchy cheeks, redness obscuring the light spray of freckles Harley loved to trace with her fingers, trying to emulate the gentle caress and awed admiration Pam had for each and every plant she came across. Pam's arms were folded tightly against herself, her shaking hands digging into her sides, and she wondered if the pain was from crying, or if the plant queen was reliving the old pain of her transformation's side-effects. Red wanted children more than she would ever say; but Harley understood.

In many ways, Harley understood Pam more than she probably should.

"Sweet Pea, I'm s—" Even at her wit's end, apologizing was impossible for Pam. "I'm s-sorry. I didn't…I didn't mean it."

Harley simply smiled, the sight of it relaxing some of the muscles in the redhead's face. She outstretched an arm, and at first Ivy took tentative steps toward her across the large distance between them. Then, as if tripping, she dashed forward and fell onto Harley in a tight embrace that left both of them breathless.

"It's all right, Pam." Harley whispered.

Strong arms encircled her, pushing her up the beanbag until it was ultimately Pam's hug and lap keeping her from slipping back down to the floor. Her back was arched uncomfortably forward, but it was hardly a matter of concern as Pam cried, her head buried in Harley's chest. Her arms wrapped around Pam's back, stroking her thick red hair.

"But ya did mean it," Harley said softly, hand gripping dozens of strands of rose-colored tresses not to hurt Pam, but ground herself. "And you were right. I was _awful _to you back then, Red. The worst of the worst. I thought that if I was just around to smile for you, hugged you and told you cute things, then it wasn't an actual bad thing. But it was a bad thing. I was treatin' you like you were some old shut-in, a loner that occasionally needed a pat on the back to survive. I…I think I felt _sorry _for ya, always by yourself, never looking at anyone like they meant anything to you. Even if it meant making you angry, angry and _sad_ when I left, I just wanted _someone _to need me for once. I just…"

Harley swallowed back her own sob. This wasn't her time to cry. It was Pam's.

"I just wanted to mean something to you."

Pam's shaking slowed, but her face had yet to emerge. It was okay; her not looking at Harley gave her the extra inch to move forward.

"I never apologized. I never even thanked you. I regret what I did to you, but not what _we _did. And I know you can't help yourself right now, because even if ya head is realizing it should be happy, doesn't make the happiness just pop up. But I want ya to know that…that I wanted to matter to _you_ because you mattered to _me._ I'm going to get real selfish again, but I don't want you to give up, Red. Don't leave me alone. If you're thirsty, if you're wilting, _let me help you_. Let me be the one helping ya grow again. I—"

A kiss, soft and warm, interrupted her, thankfully. She was starting to get gushy, like one of those old books her mom used to read. _Harlequin Romance_, ha! The irony. She felt Ivy's hand gently skim across her leg, ghosting over her until it found Harley's hand to grasp. The touch was as if she were a daffodil which needed help breaking through the snowfall of a long winter. She thought again of the peonies, that sunny day, and wondered what the Harley back then would say if she knew that one day her Red would handle her in that same way.

The Harley of the past would have laughed, secretly boiling over inside. The Harley of the past still believed Joker was capable of those same touches. Years had proven that soft notion wrong. She was older now, by just a couple of years, but older still; age may not always bring wisdom, but it certainly brought change. Though, perhaps wisdom was all a matter of perspective. Anyone outside her immediate hemisphere thought her unwise to go from one criminal to another, but they just didn't see what Harley did through her newly opened eyes.

Red was usually good to her in the presence of others, but undoubtedly good, sometimes sweeter, when no one was around; the opposite of Joker.

The kiss, tender but salted with tears, ended before Harley could truly appreciate it. Pam wasn't the only one who could get caught up in her own thoughts. To her dismay, Ivy was still crying. She couldn't have expected one little kiss to fix her every dark thought, but it was a good start. The fact that she'd been the one to initiate it meant there was already a light at the end of it all.

"You've always meant something to me, Harl." The words were a humid whisper against her neck, sending shivers through her. "I wouldn't have stuck around you this long if you didn't."

Harley's throat constricted again. Still, it wasn't her turn to break this time. That would happen later, when Red and her were in bed, and she'd feel her arm snake around hers in that first attempt to reach out when she was in these moods. Years from now, they'd get a system, a rhythm for this, but for now they would just have to weather.

"D'you realize we've been thick as thieves for almost five years and not either of us has said that four-lettered L-word to the other?" Harley chuckled, carding Pam's red hair and brushing it behind her ear.

Glassy green eyes, like dewy grass, found Harley's. "Do you honestly need it said?"

Smiling, Harley lifted Pam's head gently by the jaw, pressing their foreheads together. "Nah, don't think so. Am I still your rabbit girl?"

"Yes," Pam almost laughed too, rubbing her nose against Harley's. "But only because you've finally settled down to stay into my house and garden."


End file.
